Last winter saw one of the longest spells of stormy weather to affect Britain when Atlantic depressions just moved across one after another with no let up between Christmas 2013 and St Valentines day 2014.In all around twelve such storms battered the county with widespread destruction,flooding in particular and the main West of England railway line severed at Dawlish.
However, I look back 25 years to a very similar spell of turbulent weather when almost as many storms batterd the UK and cullminated in the worst storm to affect Glouccestershire since January 1976. The infamous Burns Day Storm of January 25th 1990 brought more damage and death than all of last winters' storms put together. It all started with a series of storms battering Scotland and the north during January and into February in what was an exceptionally mild winter. February was our warmest on record at 7.1c (45f) and the winter as a whole, the warmest to date only topped by 2006-07.
The forecast on the evening of the 24th warned of severe gales for all of Engaland and Wales the following day and the storm arrived in Cornwall at dawn and on our patch around 9am. By 10am winds were gusting at over 75mph and all hell was then unleashed. The storm intensified by midday and the hurricane force winds then touched over 90mph in Gloucestershire and 102mph in Cornwall and the following is a roundup of what happened.
3500 homes were left without power in the Forest of Dean, firemen across the county dealt with over 200 calls in 5 hours.Hundreds of trees were toppled and Westonbirt Arboretum suffered its greatest loss. At least 19 roads were blocked and rail services suspended. Many people were injured by flying debris and trees fell on to passing cars. Part of the roof of the (then) Severn Sound radio studio collapsed and a gust of 94mph punched a Victorian stained glass window in at Gloucester cathedral. Water supplies cut off in parts of the Forest Of Dean after a power failure at the Mitcheldean treatment works. Scores of buildings were damaged and at least 8 schools shut with structural damage.
The downside of it all was the fatalities aroung the country and Gloucestershire suffered two incidents. 39 year old Alison Stevens was killed when a tree fell on her MG Midget sports car in Cheltenham and 47 year old Michael Jenkins was killed when a tree fell on his lorry near Ross-On-Wye. Boats had canopies blown off at the docks and tiles flew off the North Warehouse. My wife remembers the glass clusters on street lights on Eastern Avenue crashing down into the A38 below and a dock worker would you believe suffered sea sickness whilst unloading cargo from a boat at Sharpness. Bristol Temple Meads station was shut as glass roof panels came down on to platforms below.By 2pm the fierce winds moved eastward and began to abate with the centre of the depression reading 950millibars. You may remember actor Gordon Kaye was seriously injured when a plank went through the windsreen of his car at Hounslow.
The storm eventually moved away into Europe causing havoc over there as well. Unfortunately the number of fatalities was high because it happened during the daytime with 47 deathes in the UK. Amazingly, the Burns Day storm came only 27 months after the October 15th/16th 1987 storm that struck the south-east (claiming 18 lives) and ranked the 3rd most destructive storm ever to affect Great Britain. 1987 was 2nd and the worst being the great storm of November 26th 1703 which claimed around 8000 lives.
